Mission on the high street: Felipe Yanez (centre) can be seen standing at the entrance to Manantial de Agua Viva, right next to the Carrefour supermarket
Photo: Yanez/CMS
Being a mission partner in Spain is a challenge as it is a secularist society, with many Spaniards who are disillusioned with their religious heritage.
But this was one of the reasons why CMS mission partners Felipe and Sarah Yanez felt a strong calling to go to Spain four and a half years ago: “Spain is such a needy country and it really needs an extra pair of hands,” as Felipe puts it.
Sarah and Felipe Yanez with Samuel and Aaron
(Photo: © Yanez/CMS)
The couple had also, for many years, a desire to see people working across organisational and denominational divides. Felipe, who is originally from Chile, had previously been a youth worker in Sparkhill, Birmingham – working with immigrants, while Sarah had worked in the same area as an occupational therapist.
Felipe continues: “After more than 10 years in Birmingham we felt it was time to move on. We explored different places where a lot of immigration was going on. Spain was experiencing a lot of immigration from South America and North Africa and we thought it was a good place for us to serve and also because the country is very, very secular and there are very few Christians we call evangelicals.
“Spain is a very different ball game because they are coming out of oppression. In the past it was a very religious and strict country. Now it is very free and people don’t always want to know about authority and God. It is a very, very secular nation and of course having so many tourists and so many people coming over they are very cautious about people coming from outside so you really have to build trust in order to get to know Spaniards, that is why it is so difficult.”
Sarah agrees it’s not been an easy ride for the couple, who when they first went to Spain supported an outreach project for immigrants and an associated church fellowship in Malaga.
“One of the hardest things for me has been the length of time it has taken to build relationships and get to know people,” she says. “I have also been surprised by just how uninterested people are in anything to do with the church and religion.”
She continues: “It stems from the years under Franco when the Catholic Church ruled and had the final say and evangelical Christians had to be underground. There was a lot of suspicion and the impact of that today is still very strong. A lot of people are anti-church and anti-religion. Some people even see religious activities as being on a par with other social activities – so they will sign their children up for either catechism, or football, or swimming.”
Another part of Sarah and Felipe’s ministry is hospitality - supporting Latin Americans and other Christian workers and missionaries who need somewhere to stay as they pass through the region en route to other countries.
This entails opening their house to visitors. The Yanez family live in Alhaurin de la Torre, a town about 17 kilometres from Malaga where they’ve lived with their sons Samuel (8) and Aaron (5) for two years.
In Alhaurin the family is also very involved with a small, young, bilingual free church – Centro Cristiano de Alhaurin (CCA) – which will hopefully soon be able to rent an old shop premises.
“We have always felt it is important to be involved with our local church. We have found ourselves in an ideal position to be bridge builders between the English speaking missionary community and the Spanish speaking South Americans who attend our church,” says Sarah.
She adds: “We are also taking on more and more responsibility in the leadership and activities in the church – including reaching out to the needy.” For example, Centro Cristiano de Alhaurin has close links with a Christian NGO in the town, the ABC, which provides food and practical help to those in need.
Sarah continues: “When driving through, you would not think Alhaurin is a ‘poor’ area…there are parks, tree-lined roads and a lot of new housing. But hidden below the facade are people who have mortgaged themselves up to the hilt, taken loans out on cars and have now been hit by unemployment.
“Many now cannot afford their mortgage and loan repayments and yet are unable to sell their homes. Government help is also being cut, and what there is often is not sufficient to cover housing costs, let alone food etc. A number from church are really struggling to make ends meet and the ABC is essential in providing at least some basic food to see people through from week to week.”
The couple also work with the immigrant community in nearby Torremolinos – through an outreach organisation called Asociacion Manantial de Agua Viva – which provides food distributions and language classes to the local, mainly Moroccan, community.
Prayer points: “We have built relationships and gained people’s confidence and we have now got to the point where we need to be more hands on. Please pray for how we can invest our time effectively for the future development of our various areas of mission. Please also pray for our boys, that God protect them from the negative influences of such a secular and individualistic society.”
Read more stories of mission in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world in the latest issue of CMS's Share magazine.